Harriet nods. “I understand.”
“I mention all this because I wish to invite you to participate in a significantly illegal plan I have recently devised to save your son’s life and extract some measure of justice from those who have caused him and others considerable pain. I also believe that it will contribute to the process of saving the human race from a conclusion which is not only appalling but probably also blasphemous, or at the very least reduce the risk to society from a man of notable wickedness.”
“Oh,” Harriet Spork says.
“If you wish to take part, you must come with me now and do exactly as I say. I will not conceal from you that there is some risk. Say hello to your son.”
“Hello, Joshua.”
“Hello, Mum.”
“I’ll get my coat,” says Harriet Spork.
“Good,” Polly Cradle says. “That’s one.”
Abbie Watson sits on an uncomfortable bench outside the Hospital of St. Peter and St. George in Stoker Street. The wife of an anarchist who “makes time with terrorists” looks fragile and alone. She barely glances up as someone sits next to her.
“Mrs. Watson,” the other woman says.
“Go away.”
“Very shortly. I haven’t much time. I am about to kidnap and interrogate one of the men ultimately responsible for your husband’s injuries. I will then give that information to my lover, Joe Spork, who will use it to thwart the machinations of the individual who hopes to gain by their actions. It is likely that that person will expire in the course of this thwarting. If he doesn’t, he will go to prison for ever. Also, those within the government who have sanctioned and even endorsed his behaviour will be held to some species of account.”
Abbie Watson looks up. The woman is small and dark and very pretty, but there is a steel in her which Abbie has encountered only rarely. Behind her, somewhat abashed, is an emaciated-looking nun. Harriet Spork smiles nervously.
“I should also tell you,” the woman goes on, “that unless you object, Griff will be moved to the care of a Swiss specialist later today. Dr. von Bergen is flying from Zürich with his team. Griff will be the recipient of an experimental treatment in which tissue and organs are seeded on a polymer matrix using a neutral stem-cell line. I understand the speed of this process is now so rapid that you can almost see them growing. Dr. von Bergen anticipates that Griff will recover quite happily, given time and care, both of which he will have in abundance. There is almost no risk involved, especially given what I understand are the somewhat limited alternatives. You may therefore wish to avoid any involvement in my activities. I would entirely understand.”
Abbie Watson scowls. “Like Hell,” she says.
Polly Cradle nods. “Then that’s two.”
“I thought you’d never bloody get here!” Cecily cries before Polly can even speak. “And then I thought you’d decided I was too old! Where is the bugger? Shut up, Foalbury, I’m going, and that’s all there is to it. Oh, Harriet, hello, thank goodness, now I feel less like a crone among babes and more like a grandmother out with her brood. Speaking of broods, where’s the boy? Never mind, never mind, let’s get to the part where we smite the unrighteous. I’ve brought my most alarming teeth!”
And indeed, she has, a steel set made in 1919 for an American prospector who liked to chew rocks and taste the precious ores.
“Three,” Polly Cradle says, and then explains what they are going to do. Joe Spork, listening in the back of the minibus Polly made him steal for the occasion, feels there is altogether too much cackling.
They follow the bus’s excellent (female) satellite-navigation system to the address Polly has chosen from the two on the Hon Don’s list, and take the lift to the right floor. With Joe waiting at the end of the corridor and Harriet, Abbie, and Cecily arranged behind her, Polly rings the bell.
When the doorbell rang, Arvin Cummerbund was in the walk-in shower of his apartment in Paddington. It is a modern apartment; off-white walls and sharp-edged furniture, a glass dining table in one corner of the open-plan space and an expensive cream leather sofa in the other. Arvin Cummerbund is very keen on the sofa, because it has a clever arrangement of rails which allows the back to be moved around for convenience. He has never actually used this facility, but he feels that its presence enriches his life.
Arvin, in the shower, considered himself, and found that he looked like a glistening Aztec pyramid made in flesh, step after step after step of glorious pink fat. Luxuriantly, he soaped. His hands lifted and loo-fahed, burnishing the edifice. He slipped his fingers under each precious layer, into the crease, around, and onto the top, beginning the process again. He examined himself, and found that he shone wetly in the mellow bathroom light. His strong, conical legs and knotted knees carried the remarkable burden of his body without strain. Arvin knew himself to be light on his feet. In a couple more decades, he would have to forsake some part of this majesty, lest his heart and joints begin to complain. In any case, his skin would stretch and droop, lose the resilient elasticity which made him so remarkably erotic.
He had it from Rodney Titwhistle that morning—a collegial bit of trivia over the morning reports—that sumo wrestlers, in the course of their training, must wash one another. Specifically, the younger, less lauded must assist the others in their ablutions. Arvin could not imagine wanting help. This daily ceremony was his chance to appreciate himself in fullest glory. Each roped handful was a memory of some vast, sumptuous, indulgent feast; every pound was earned in delight, represented physical excesses and lust. He treasured the stories beneath his skin almost as much as he enjoyed having this fabulous body. Arvin Cummerbund was more than fat, and far more than obese, which was a nay-sayers’ term, a sad little epithet born of puritans and fear-mongering, and probably of jealousy. He was gigantic, and as he stood in his special wash-box, with its concrete floor and mirrored walls, and the many jets of water scoured and exfoliated him, he fancied he resembled Poseidon himself. He made a mental note to secure a trident and a fishy costume. Magnificent Arvin the water god.
Alas, all things must pass. He stepped out of the shower and considered his lotions. For Arvin, the business of getting ready to go out could take an entire day. But the rewards were equal to the effort: women—in all shapes and sizes, of all ages and from all corners of the Earth and all walks of life—once they had overcome the initial fashionable reluctance to be encompassed by a man of his measure, found in themselves a powerful fascination with his body, a need to throw themselves across him and wallow in him. His current girlfriend, Helena (by any standard utterly beautiful, also Argentinian by birth and monstrously wealthy), had declared via the electronic mail her intention to feed him caviar with her fingers and ride him like a polo pony. It was an idea which Arvin Cummerbund felt had distinct promise.
And then the doorbell rang. Helena was early, but eagerness, Arvin Cummerbund thought to himself, was a trait he could only accept gracefully. Still, she would have to learn patience as well. The business of preparing Arvin for the fight was long and splendid. Perhaps he would permit her to assist. The notion of her, dressed no doubt in some long evening gown, climbing nimbly around Mount Cummerbund, diligently and even worshipfully applying unguents, possessed a degree of appeal.
He hitched a bath towel—custom-made—around his middle, and stepped lightly to his front door. He inhaled, so as to be at his most enormous, and flung it wide.